Latino children are one of the fastest growing demographic groups in K-12 education. However, few are likely to grow up and establish careers in technology. For them, there is obviously a leak somewhere in the school-to-employment process.
Fair tech-workers” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener nofollow”>one in 10 tech workers are Latino, and while Latino college students choose STEM fields in college more often, they earn only about 12 percent of university degrees awarded in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Federal data shows that K-12 schools with high percentages of Hispanic students offer fewer STEM courses than schools with lower proportions of Hispanic children.
Reporter Nadia Tamez-Robledo recently moderated a panel of technology experts at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute's annual conference to talk about why Latinos are still lagging behind in science education and what it will take to ensure they don't fall behind, particularly in the rapidly growing ai industry. Read the main takeaways below.
Why is it important to increase the number of Latinos in STEM?
Diana Logreira is director of web programs for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, which studies Earth from space. He said the organization is trying to increase Latino interest in science through initiatives such as a partnership with Arizona State University to create K-12 science activities, and the effort is part of its overall mission to boost innovation.
“We need to engage more underrepresented communities in our programs, missions and our research, so what we've been doing is trying to figure out how we can connect our content to those communities,” Logreira said. “For us, innovation is essential and there is much research that shows that diversity is related and connected to the efficiency of innovation and scientific discovery.”
Maria Guedez is senior vice president of business development and technology at Denbury, an oil and gas company owned by Exxon Mobil. She said that with Latinos making up 20 percent of university students, are the company's future workforce. She believes they will help it remain an energy supplier and leverage technology to combat climate change.
“Making sure they understand, that they see themselves reflected in the space and the possibilities of how they can play a role (is important),” Guedez said. “At Exxon Mobil, we have been committed for many years to feeding that pipeline.”
He said industry partnerships with schools will be “critical” to increasing the share of Latinos entering science and technology jobs, and one way his company does that is by sending its own scientists to do demonstrations in schools. . Part of the goal is to expand the types of careers students can pursue in the sciences.
“They see it in a very limited sense and sometimes they don't have a reference point of what it looks like,” Guedez said. “They may not have anyone in their families or circle who has been in STEM careers, so (school associations) are bridging that representation and giving them the opportunity to see what it really means to take a career in engineering, mathematics, science.”
Noel Candelaria, secretary-treasurer of the National Education Association, pointed to statistics showing that Latinos represent more than 90 percent of US population growth since the start of the pandemic, and that will offset 78 percent of new workers by 2030. Those numbers are reasons why Latino students should participate in technology classes and career paths, he explained.
“We want to make sure that the new workforce is in advanced technologies,” Candelaria said, “not just in the service industry, (in) which we have been pigeonholed as a community for decades, but that we are actually the ones that are pigeonholed.” as a community for decades,” Candelaria said. leading in this space.”
What are the challenges to increasing the number of Latinos in STEM?
Isabella Elvir-Ray, director of program management at Salesforce, said one of the steps to advancing Latinos in technology is to change the way the community thinks about artificial intelligence.
“When we hear the word ai, most of us fear it,” Elvir-Ray said. “How do we eliminate that fear of ai – the feeling that it will replace humans?”
In his experience, young Latinos like his 14-year-old son are excited about ai and want opportunities to use it in school. You have to take advantage of that enthusiasm.
“I think that's the topic of this conversation: How do we merge technologies into our education system for underrepresented minorities?” Elvir-Ray said. “Especially (encourage) our Latino community to adopt these technologies, because they have adopted them at an early stage in their lives.”
Candelaria said the National Education Association has published guidance on your website about “bringing ai equitably and fairly to our schools, to our classrooms.” Schools still need the expertise of industry professionals in their communities on how to ensure their students make the most of rapidly growing technology.
“One thing our members have kept telling us over the past few years is, 'This is here and now, and we need help,'” Candelaria said of artificial intelligence. That means helping “make sure we're looking at how we bring ai into the classrooms, making sure we're adequately funding our public schools so that they not only have the software and hardware, but also the training that students need.” educators.”
Beyond having a roadmap for teaching ai content, Candelaria said infrastructure, internet connectivity and attracting tech-savvy teachers are also important needs to ensure Latino students have STEM education options. It's difficult to retrofit 100-year-old schools to modern classrooms, he added, and rural students in particular need help with Internet access at home.
“We are seeing a record number of Latino students coming to our rural communities, many of them who are immigrating to this country for the first time and do not have the (Internet) infrastructure,” Candelaria said. “It doesn't help if we can connect our schools (but) we can't connect them in the community. “If we don’t do that, we will leave all of our students behind, especially in Latino communities, who overwhelmingly (more than 90 percent of them) attend our public schools.”
The need for mentoring
Another theme that emerged from the panel was how mentoring played a role in the panelists' journey toward careers in technology.
Guedez said he had a relative who worked in the oil and gas industry, and he talked to him about the type of careers engineering could provide. He has had mentors throughout his nearly two decades at Exxon Mobil, including access to nearly 2,000 members of the company's Latino employee pool.
Elvir-Ray said that as a student, she chose a degree in management information systems “because I had told myself, 'I'm not smart enough to do (computer) programming.'” It was an unexpected opportunity to do an IT Internship at Fannie Mae that changed his mindset.
“From that moment on I was hooked because I understood that being in IT was not just about programming,” she said. “I thought, 'I can't just sit in a corner writing code.' “I’m a people person and what this internship showed me was that there were other types of careers in IT where you can deal with clients and deal with people.”
Logreira said she and other members of NASA's Science Mission Directorate's Hispanic employee group volunteer their time to join their Human Resources colleagues at conferences and campus visits where Latino students will attend as part of the increased visibility of Latinos in technology.
“We're trying to create that 'we can do it' mentality,” Logreira said. “The fact that I am here today, I have to say, is that at some point someone realized that I had something to contribute.”
